A SURVEY OF ACHIEVEMENTS AND PROBLEMS IN NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abstract

Although it will be natural for me, as a Unesco official, to talk of national and international bibliography with a special reference to the role which Unesco is playing in the development of bibliographical services, I do not propose to stress Unesco's work as if it had validity in itself, but rather to look at national and international activities from the somewhat favourable viewpoint of a person in Unesco whose duty it is to see the world picture as a whole and to contribute to the clarity of the picture by fulfilling certain planning functions. It has constantly been stated in our programmes that Unesco's role consists chiefly in stimulating, promoting and co‐ordinating activities, but in order to do these things well we have occasionally found it necessary to enter into the active field of bibliographical production ourselves. Where we do so, as in the production of Fundamental Education Abstracts, the new Index Bibliographicus and certain other bibliographical guides, it is only because we believe that by efficiently assuming responsibility for production, or for the actual organization of a bibliographical project, we may fulfil our major responsibilities of helping and stimulating national or international organizations to do whatever is necessary themselves. There are, in fact, few tasks which Unesco has undertaken which in other circumstances could not have been undertaken, or previously were not undertaken by independent or national agencies.